December 3-6, 2009

Momenta Art is pleased to participate for a second year in the PULSE Contemporary Art Fair. For a non-profit such as Momenta to remain vital, it must respond to and within the larger art world, a world in which art fairs are crucial venues for seeing and experiencing art. To this end, Momenta is committed not only to bringing a representational sample of its programming but also to presenting work that is thoughtful within the context of PULSE.

Hunter Reynolds. Brain Spot. 2009, c-prints, thread, 96"x72"

Hunter Reynolds. detail of HURRICANE WILMA, HURRICANE HUNTER. 2009, c-prints, thread, 96"x84"

This year's project includes two large-scale works by Hunter Reynolds. These works, which the artist calls "photoweavings," consist of hundreds of individually printed 4"x6" photos that the artist has sewn together, transforming them to a grand scale. Yet the skill and aesthetic power of these works are not what makes them appropriate for Momenta or as a selection for PULSE. What makes these works appropriate is their content.

These are works about Florida, about art insiders and outsiders, about the abject crises artists endure in order to make their art. They are about the underside, what we don't think about during the frenetic heights of the art fairs that overlay Miami during this weekend in December.

Reynolds is from South Florida and returned here after a series of life-altering events. 9/11, substance abuse, a close friend's suicide, the artist's own attempted suicide, the collapse of his immune system, surviving AIDS, and four strokes that left his right hand partially paralyzed. These trials were compounded in 2005, when Hurricane Wilma ripped through his studio. At wits end, the artist destroyed whatever the hurricane had not.

The two works of Reynolds that are presented at PULSE grew from that devastation, from photo documentation of the detritus: shattered crockery, paint splatters, water damage, water stains. The artist pulled his life together by finding and creating aesthetic meaning amid the loss.

Out of bizarre coincidence, one random stain looked like a brain scan, echoing the scans the artist had done after his strokes. A photo of that stain became Brain Spot. The other piece presented here, HURRICANE WILMA, HURRICANE HUNTER, takes the pattern of paint and stains that covered everything and reinforces that patterning. By mixing the images through his "photoweaving," Reynolds pushes the photographs to an even greater level of dissolution, to the point at which aesthetic meaning asserts itself in spite of hardship.

Eve Sussman. Oil Fields, Baku, 2016. 2009, pigment on metallic silver paper, 20 x 30.5 ed. 20.

The other artist's work presented by Momenta also offers an image of devastation transformed. In Oil Fields, Baku, 2016 - a still from Eve Sussman's film White on White [a noir], we see a landscape of oil fields in total environmental collapse. But the image is manipulated, filtered, and printed on silver. The scene fades to a gorgeous patina and reminds us that hope is not lost. Transformation is possible. Salvation can happen through careful attention - and action.

Momenta would like to thank the artist, Luther Davis/Axelle Editions, and Ann Fensterstock for making possible Sussman's edition.
Proceeds from sales of this print go directly to support programming.